Le Pen “determined” to give a voice to a divided NF

Ⓒ AFP – FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI – | The President of the National Front Marine Le Pen on September 9, 2017 in Brachay

Weakened and hardly audible since his failure in the second round of the presidential election against Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen said Saturday in Brachay (Haute-Marne) “determined” to give voice and strength to a FN mined by the quarrels, attacking the insoumis and the executive.

“I come back with great determination,” said lunchtime president of the National Front in front of about 500 people, tricolor flag and umbrella in hand, the fault at a capricious time after several years under a great sun in this small where she has been back in politics since 2014.

The climate has indeed deteriorated for Marine Le Pen: present in the second round of the presidential against Emmanuel Macron, it appears supplanted by Jean-Luc Mélenchon as headliner of the opposition to the head of state.

His party is divided. Despite the record of presidential votes and majority-backed MPs, party officials have repeatedly blamed themselves for electoral failure, with some now doubting that Marine Le Pen is their best electoral asset.

Ⓒ AFP – FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI – | The Secretary General of the FN Nicolas Bay September 9, 2017 in Brachay

The president of the FN has violently attacked Emmanuel Macron (“nomad France”) and even more Jean-Luc Mélenchon (“the Islamo-Trotskyists”), presenting his party as “the exact antithesis of macronism” and “the only one able to embody the great alternation” in a France to the situation according to her catastrophic, notably because of immigration.

She seized the opportunity to accuse the executive of having “nothing planned” or “anticipated” in Saint Barthelemy and Saint Martin, devastated by Hurricane Irma.

She also directly blamed Emmanuel Macron, “perched on the Greek rubble of the austerity policy” Friday in a speech in Athens, “to treat those who refuse to comply with his policy of perpetuity precariousness” .

– Challenge of “refounding” –

But for lack of elections to come in the immediate future, apart from the senatorial ones in two weeks, its major project is internal, that of the “refoundation”, launched on the evening of the second lost lap.

On this subject, she quickly warned her lieutenants against the poison of the division in three quarters of an hour: “In big fights, small personal careers do not count (…) The first victory is on ourselves “.

The new Front National, “which will bear a new name”, will see its orientations adjusted after a congress in March in Lille, whose vote will be “sovereign”.

In the meantime, a tour of “refoundation”, of which Brachay was the first stage before Toulouse on the 23rd, and a questionnaire sent at the end of the month to the frontists.

Mrs. Le Pen called “all Frenchmen” to participate in her great work, promising a new structure, a “more decentralized” renewed functioning mechanism, but also a “more formalized” Europe of Nations project – – it was desired internally – and the emergence of “new personalities”.

It also advocated a better “openness to political and electoral alliances”. This vow is formulated by many supporters, some like Secretary General Nicolas Bay wanting to attract an enlarged right-wing electorate, others like Vice President Florian Philippot bringing France “no” to the referendum on the 2005 European Constitution.

Both were present, each playing his score. The first said Saturday morning on France Inter that for the debate of “refoundation”, “we were not obliged to organize structures outside the FN, reference to the launch criticized in May of the association Les Patriotes by Mr. Philippot, and asking “to take the central question of identity”.

The vice-president of the FN said to him “prefer to fight against Emmanuel Macron rather than with the people with whom I have to work,” assuring that everything was fine with Marine Le Pen, with whom he had just “shared a coffee “.

“Since there are no elections, we must put ourselves on the figure,” summarized recently, sorry, a historic frontier to AFP.